1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to the field of telecommunications, and more particularly, to efficiently accessing network elements through coordination and management of element management systems.
2. Background Information
Network providers deploy numerous network elements, such as central office terminals, switches, digital subscriber line access multiplexers (DSLAMs), remote terminals and the like, for various types of networks, including digital subscriber line (DSL), asymmetric DSL (ADSL), very high speed DSL (VDSL), time division multiplexed (TDM), wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks. The network elements are managed in order to coordinate provisioning of services, to detect faults and errors and to collect network data, typically through element management system (EMS) servers. There are numerous types of EMS servers provided by different vendors, having differing capabilities, requirements and constraints. For example, EMS servers from one vendor may only provide management access to DSLAMs from the same vendor.
EMS servers are typically accessed through clients, such as web-based management application and bulk-loading batch application clients, as well as direct access users. Each EMS server allows a limited number of management application clients to connect to it at one time (e.g., approximately 15), depending on its specific design. Accordingly, the number of clients that the web-based management application, for example, can concurrently support for each EMS is limited to the same number. Further, bulk-loading batch applications typically must be run alongside the management applications. These batch applications require a large number of connections for each EMS (e.g., approximately 10) due to traffic load, leaving only the remaining EMS server connections (e.g., approximately 5) available for the management applications. Further, different vendors place different limits on client traffic to their respective EMS servers, such as limits on the maximum number of outstanding transaction language 1 (TL1) commands to the EMS server, the maximum number of outstanding TL1 commands to a DSLAM or other network element, and the maximum number of DSLAMs or other network elements that can be addressed by all the outstanding TL1 commands. Currently, management applications encounter and detect error situations when any of these limits are exceeded, and may abort the operation and/or provide error indications to the users as a result.
EMS servers may be grouped with other EMS servers for accessing a group of related network elements, for example. Typically, one of the EMS servers in each group assumes the primary role and the others assume backup roles. Often, all but one of the EMS servers in an EMS group may be shutdown or otherwise inoperable. Therefore, the management applications attempting to access network elements through an EMS group are expected to be able to determine the functional EMS server. This also applies to users attempting to connect directly to an EMS server to execute TL1 commands. Currently, external scripts and utilities may be used to poll periodically each EMS server within each of the EMS groups, and record in a database which EMS servers are functional. Accordingly, management application clients and direct access users consult these database records. However, the database records may be stale, for example, if an EMS server is shutdown between polling intervals. Also, management application clients and direct access users lose access when the EMS server to which they are currently connected shuts down.
Accordingly, there is a need for efficient, comprehensive management of network elements and the EMS servers and/or EMS groups servicing them.